2007
The official Pride theme was “United for Equality.” San Diego Pride continued to try new things and test out new ideas, while letting go of things that didn’t pan out or which proved unpopular or unnecessary. One example was in the Pride program, which ceased to be printed in both Spanish and English in order to have more room to provide information about the Pride events.
The Rally/Community Celebration
In an effort to bolster sagging attendance at the rally, the event was moved back to the Organ Pavilion, and relabeled as a community celebration rather than a rally. Featured speakers included Seth Kilbourn of Equality California and Jason Knight of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. The date was also changed from Friday night, when it was thought that many of the potential attendees would rather be participating in pre-Pride celebrations, to Sunday afternoon the weekend before the parade.
Parade
Changes in the parade included a reduced number of honorees in each category. The change was in response to suggestions from 
some members of the community, although it proved unpopular with others. This proved the old adage that it is impossible to please everybody all of the time. One example of the change was that there was only one Grand Marshal, Bruce Abrams.
Another change was the addition of a new category in 2007, the Inspirational Couple category, which paid homage to long-time couples within the community. The honorees were Cynthia Lawrence and Peggy Heathers, a couple of 35 years, and Jerry Peterson and Dr. Bob Smith, a couple of 40 years.
The parade took place on July 21st, the morning after the seventh and last Harry Potter book went on sale at midnight. At least one parade participant (seen at right) was caught taking a break from contingent preparation to get a little reading in.
Festival
At the festival, the driving force behind new changes was the desire to appease the diverse wants and needs within the community. The Children’s Garden had long been popular with parents of younger children, so a Family Midway was added to provide a place for older kids and their families to be together.
At the same time that Pride was trying to be more family friendly, Pride added another new area to the festival, called “Freedom Zone,” in response to complaints by other people who felt that the venue was becoming TOO family friendly. This over-18 zone was set aside in order to provide vendors a place to sell items without limitations on the display of adult materials. It was hoped that it would help certain vendors and certain buyers find each other at the festival.
The most noticeable change in the festival however took place at the end of the loop. The very end of the loop was annexed in order to expand the popular Tavern on the Green. It was thought that this would provide a way to expand the beverage garden without cutting into the vendor space because the end of the loop was historically only used as a porta potty area. At the end of the loop, people encountered a gate and had to hike across the grass down to the lower level in order to continue their exploration of the festival.
This proved enormously unpopular. Although it didn’t cut into any vendor space and it was an easy walk across the grass to the next booths, it was overwhelmingly disliked. Pride learned that people like walking the loop! Strolling along the loop is easy and gives people a way to peruse all the vendors and see all the entertainment venues. The overwhelmingly negative response encouraged Pride to restore the loop in 2008, but it was a good effort at trying something new.
Entertainment
Another area of change at the festival was in the entertainment. Pride worked hard to bring top talent to the venue, such as Dirty Sanchez, and Gloria Trevi on the Latin stage. Also, in a scheduling coup, Pride lined up Erasure as the Sunday-night headliner. Crowds swelled around the Jack FM stage to see the duo bring down the house. It was definitely the biggest name to perform at the festival since Cyndi Lauper in 2002.
After the festival closed, some lucky fans even got to meet Erasure frontman Andy Bell. He stopped in at Pecs for an unscheduled beer or two, much to the thrill of his fans who happened to be there.